'We Are Not That Stupid': Rev. Al Sharpton Says Black Voters Won't Be Fooled by Red-Baiting

[Autumn]

Attacks on Sanders
"The civil rights movement always was targeted by those that would use the Red Scare. They accused Dr. King of being a communist. We've been down that road before."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/26/we-are-not-stupid-rev-al-sharpton-says-black-voters-wont-be-fooled-red-baiting?fbclid=IwAR3Y-wYjv4Mqq9yorqajub8pFXQOsunUjoPejjpFhyQOo4qsr-ZPIOWwiZI

Rev. Al Sharpton said Wednesday that black voters in South Carolina, which holds its Democratic presidential primary on Saturday, will not be deceived by red-baiting attacks on Sen. Bernie Sanders because "we've been down that road before."

"Every major leader in the 60s they tried to call socialist or communist. Whatever you decide to do on Saturday, do not go by those that use the 'socialist' tag to try to separate us from what we need to do for this country."
—Rev. Al Sharpton

"The civil rights movement always was targeted by those that would use the Red Scare," Sharpton said at the South Carolina Ministers' Breakfast in North Charleston as he introduced the Vermont senator.

Sanders and five other Democratic presidential hopefuls attended the event, which was hosted by the National Action Network.

"They accused Dr. King of being a communist," Sharpton said. "Every major leader in the 60s they tried to call socialist or communist. Whatever you decide to do on Saturday, do not go by those that use the 'socialist' tag to try to separate us from what we need to do for this country... And we are not that stupid to allow you to tell us who is what."

"Those of us that had to fight for the right to vote need to use that vote in a fair way, fair to those that fought for it," added Sharpton, pointing to Sanders' involvement in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. "One of them that came south to fight for that and was arrested was the senator from the state of Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders."

Watch:

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Autumn.

[WhereAmerica]

2. Except Bernie actually is a red

Bernie is a socialist, a red. Few people will know the difference between a socialist and a communist.

He will be a disaster for the country, and we will lose everyting.

[Autumn]

6. I know for a fact you don't know the difference between a socialist and a communist.

Thank God our great civil rights leaders know the difference and have warned us repeatedly what tactic they will use against those who will stand for us.

There were roadside billboards scattered throughout the South purporting to show King at a communist training camp. Hoover “cultivated King as the fearsome dark symbol of the latest 20th century threat to tranquility on Main Street America—succeeding immigrants, Depression gangsters, Nazis and communists.”

Dr. Kind a man who was often called a liar, a con man and a communist in his "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" King talked about them using their “morbid fear of Communism,” arguing that it prevented people from embracing a “revolutionary spirit and … declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism, and militarism”

"Every major leader in the 60s they tried to call socialist or communist. Whatever you decide to do on Saturday, do not go by those that use the 'socialist' tag to try to separate us from what we need to do for this country."
—Rev. Al Sharpton

Please proceed with that nonsense that Bernie is a commie.

WhereAmerica (13 posts)

2. Except Bernie actually is a red

Bernie is a socialist, a red. Few people will know the difference between a socialist and a communist.

He will be a disaster for the country, and we will lose everyting.

[zackymilly]

54. Majority of the voters don't know the difference, and they are the ones that will decide who wins.nt

[Autumn]

55. A majority of voters do know the difference and they aren't buying that commie shit.

[redqueen]

18. Welcome to DU

[David__77]

34. A definition.

Red-bait
/ˈredbāt/
verbINFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN
gerund or present participle: red-baiting
harass or persecute (someone) on account of known or suspected communist sympathies.
"the red-baiting chairman of the Senate committee"

[lunasun]

39. A Red ?

https://m.

[Progressive dog]

3. Bernie revels in being a socialist

and he doesn't deny it now.

[Autumn]

4. I have become a socialist and I will never deny it. So have millions of others

As a Human being, a Democrat and a POC I stand with Reverend Sharpton. I stand with Bernie, because he stands for me.

[Progressive dog]

24. I would never be a socialist,

socialism treats people as a herd or hive rather than the individuals they are.

[LakeArenal]

26. Not exactly true. But okay...

[Autumn]

28. None of that's true with Democratic Socialists. We don't even demand oaths.

You can rest assured no one will ever assimilate you and force you to be one.

[Progressive dog]

31. Of course it is true, Bernie even wants to

socialize almost a fifth of our economy just for starters. That will force doctors, nurses, hospital employees, dentists and even drug manufacturers to work for the government under a socialist scheme. It treats those workers as if they were a hive, existing only for the owners.

[Autumn]

32. That's a RW talking point if ever I've heard one. We have Medicare, ACA, Medicaid and VA now.

All all government healthcare programs and no doctors, nurses, hospital employees, dentists work and exist for only the owners, whoever those mythical owners are.

[Progressive dog]

33. Truth is no wing's talking point

Rates for medicare, medicaid, ACA, VA, are negotiated rates and medicare rates were cut under ACA because the government was going to provide health insurance to many more people. The medicare rate is 17.4% below the average price according to that famous Yale "study." The proposed price for drugs is 40% below the current price according to the same supposed study. When they get all done with the cuts and then reduce the amount of health care needed, they only need to raise taxes by an insignificant 1.5 trillion or so per year to pay for the 180 million who already have non government paid health care.

[David__77]

35. Excellent!

...

[theaocp]

5. Extremely fair assessment.

Thank you for the thread and thank you Rev. Sharpton. I don't always agree with him, but he's right.

[LizBeth]

7. When did Sanders go to the south to fight for civil rights movement?

I read he went to S Chicago and was arrested there, but I am reading Sharpton say he went to the south, and I am not recalling Sanders ever being in the south fighting for the civil rights movement.

[Autumn]

8. You can contact the good Reverend Sharpton. He will be happy to enlighten you, he remembers.

"Those of us that had to fight for the right to vote need to use that vote in a fair way, fair to those that fought for it," added Sharpton, pointing to Sanders' involvement in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. "One of them that came south to fight for that and was arrested was the senator from the state of Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders."

[LizBeth]

9. So, you can not answer when Sanders was in the south. I googled and found nothing.

Even if I knew how to contact Sharpton, I doubt he would pay any attention to my question. It doesn't mean it should not be answered.

[Autumn]

11. There are many ways to contact Rev. Sharpton, he's not that hard to find.

Google brings up several. It all depends on if you really want an answer.

[LizBeth]

13. It is a simple question. It should be a simple enough answer. There is a claim he was in the South

fighting the civil rights movement. We should be able to ask, when? I did the research and I am not showing that Sanders went any further south than Washington DC or South Chicago.

[Autumn]

14. You've already asked when. I suggest you ask Rev. Sharpton if you want to know. I'm not here

to spend all day looking for the answers you want for your questions . Sounds like you're part way there already. Keep it up and don't waste my time. I'm not Rev. Sharpton's spokesperson, if you think he's lying your beef is with him so contact him and demand a retraction.

[LizBeth]

15. You are the one that put the information out there. You are the one with the problem with a question

being asked. Maybe someone else will have the information. I am good with being wrong. I simply do not have information showing Sanders in the South fighting for the civil rights movement. I would like that information if it is correct. If it is not correct and Sanders never was in the south fighting for the civil rights movement, I think he should not get credit for a fight he was not in.

[Autumn]

20. Then you should quit wasting time on me. There's a shitload of information being posted here

on a hundred different topic and current events. Many without links. Maybe you might want to look and correct them. I posted what a civil rights leader has to say about Bernie. If you are so very concerned that he's a liar do an OP correcting Rev. Sharpton. This is a message board people put information out there. I'm not his spokesman and I'm not about to speak for him. YMMV

If you don't have any information you aren't looking for information. Or you aren't willing to accept information that you don't like. Either way it's not my problem.

[LizBeth]

21. Maybe someone else will be able to correct me. It doesn't have to be only you to back up what you

post. Someone else might read this and have the answer for me.

[Autumn]

22. Start an OP, I'm sure you know how.

[llashram]

49. try in this OP

reply #40. Your question is answered in black and white. Clear as day. And Snopes has an interesting take on this subject

[LizBeth]

51. Clear as day. S Chicago and Washington DC. No southern state, MLK picture or arrest in the South.

I have read that article more than once.

[llashram]

41. okay

but John Lewis didn't and he was close to MLK.

[Autumn]

42. a lot of people were close to MLK.

[llashram]

43. true

yet...

[Autumn]

45. yet... if you want to say it say it, don't beat around the bush.

[llashram]

48. I don't have to

the truth is out there as fact. please refer to reply # 40. You have a good one I'm done with this.

[Cal Carpenter]

25. I'm not sure if he did - Bernie actually avoids talking about the details

of his personal life, including his consistent history of activism, despite the efforts of his campaign staff who think it would help him.

But he did do a hell of a lot in Chicago. Like chaining himself to a bunch of people, mostly black women, to block bulldozers that were clearing space to install shitty mobile classrooms for black kids rather than allowing them into the white schools with vacant seats:





Perhaps Rev Al misspoke, or perhaps he knows more of the story than we do. I don't know.

[MrsCoffee]

10. Voters won't be fooled by establishment-baiting.

It's ridiculous that anyone bought into the fake revolution to begin with.

[Autumn]

12. I think Reverend Sharpton is nobody's fool. nt

[Hav]

16. Strange argument

He talks about people accusing someone of being a socialist. In Sanders' case, that's the label he chose for himself until he ran for President. There is a difference between getting that label from others and embracing it for himself.

[Autumn]

17. Not strange at all. He correctly pointed out the accusation and smears that were used against MLK

and other civil rights leaders in the 60s are the same socialist, red commie scare tactics we are hearing today. Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist. He has never called himself a communist. Bloomer and other people are calling Sanders a red commie and likening him to nazi's . Reverend Sharpton is calling them out on it.

[ehrnst]

37. He was a very active in the marxist Workers Socialist Party

So there's that. None of the other candidates has that bit of history.

[lunasun]

38. I posted this before it is well known right wingers of the day called MLK a communist BIGTIME

https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13017/how-charles-koch-backed-john-birch-society-height-its-attacks-martin-luther-king

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/bringing-back-birch

The FBI hated him and called him everything possible

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41871956

Many of the allegations contained in the paper appear to be reports of private conversations between others, or hearsay reported third-hand.

Shades of trump “some people say”

Done posting this too many times

[The Mouth]

23. The problem is the word itself.

Too damn many different definitions of it.

National Socialism
International Socialism
Democratic Socialist
Social Democracy


Annoying; it's hard to talk about something with such differing definitions

[redqueen]

19. K&R!

[Hoyt]

27. Yep. Question is who is most likely to beat trump and get some things accomplished.

[Autumn]

29. From what I've seen any Dem beats him.

[Hoyt]

30. Not sure about that. I do believe big promises do not guarantee progress.

[OkSustainAg]

36. All primates are social

As we develop on the evolutionary scale we face larger problems. We are individuals and we come to the collective by choice and by our nature to help our groups no matter the size. My own personality ventures more to the altruistic.

[llashram]

40. okay

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago/

[George II]

44. Sanders NEVER "went south" to fight for civil rights, and he was never arrested for that....

Other than going to Washington in the summer of 1963, his entire civil right activity took place while he was a student at the University of Chicago for three years.

In a Mother Jones article, speaking about John Lewis and Sanders:

The Georgia congressman was a titan of the civil rights movement. A participant in the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), he went on to lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and still bears the scars he received at Selma. Sanders’ involvement was, by comparison, brief and localized, his sacrifices limited to one arrest for protesting and a bad GPA from neglecting his studies. But Sanders was, in his own right, an active participant in the movement during his three years at the University of Chicago.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago/

[Autumn]

46. So what we have here is a disagreement between John Lewis and Reverend Al Sharpton

[tritsofme]

50. Between those two, its no contest.

[Autumn]

53. I agree. No contest at all. nt

[no_hypocrisy]

56. I would have it differently, without inferring the AA Community is stupid.